sitalchauhan
09-04-2007, 14:47
I am on 10Mb Virgin Media cable broadband, using a motorola SB4200 modem connected by ethernet with no router. My speeds are quite good, getting a high of 1075kbps using bittorrent.
You can read my whole story which explains it much better, or just skip down to my questions ;)
Every 3 days or so, the internet would go down for about 2/3 hours and then suddenly start up again without me doing anything. The modem would have a flashing online light but all of my digital tv channels would still work fine.
I eventually got fed up as it kept happening every few days and phoned up CS. I was told by an Indian guy that they were doing repairs in my area and it should be over soon. However, I doubted this very much as it had been happening so regularly.
I phoned again straight after hanging up and got through to an English guy who checked and said there was no maintenance in my area, did a few checks and then decided to send out an engineer to my house as he could find out why.
1hr later the engineer turned up at my door, very impresive :D
However, just my luck that the internet started working again only a couple of mins before he turned up!
He checked my signal levels and everything and said that everything seems to be working fine and there is nothing he can really do. I have a motorola SB4200 modem and asked if it needs to be replaced, but he said that they can handle 10mb without any problems and dont need to be replaced.
Couple of days later, internet went down again!
I remember the engineer mentioned briefly about changing the frequency to 331000000 instead of my currently set 339000000 , but said he didnt need to change it as everything seemed to be fine.
I changed the frequency to 331000000 through my config page, rebooted the modem and the internet worked fine!
I changed the freq back to 339000000 just to check and it still wasnt working, so switched back to 331000000 and it worked and have kept it on this new freq since.
So it has something to do with this frequency.
However, upon changing to the new frequency, my signal levels changed.
With the original 339000000Hz frequency, my signal levels were:
Signal to Noise Ratio : 38 dB
QAM : 256
Downstream Power Level : 1 dBmV
Upstream Power Level : 42 dBmV
With the new 331000000Hz frequency, my power levels changed and are now:
Downstream Power Level : 0 dBmV
Upstream Power Level : 52 dBmV
The upstream power level seems a bit high, but have not had any problems as of yet and am still getting good 10Mb speeds of 1000kbps+
1) Are there any other frequencies other than 339000000Hz and 331000000Hz that I could try?
2) Are my new power levels ok? The upstream seems a bit high but havnt had any problems yet. Is it worth me getting an engineer out to adjust the level?
3) Has anybody else had/heard of this sort of problem and explain what is causing it?
4) Can somebody explain how changing the frequency is making it work again, and what changing the frequency exactly does?
5) Are there any improvements in the new modems over the SB4200 that make it worth asking for the modem to be replaced?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
I think I have solved the problem by changing the frequency, but like to understand why I needed to change the freq in the first place and what it does :D
You can read my whole story which explains it much better, or just skip down to my questions ;)
Every 3 days or so, the internet would go down for about 2/3 hours and then suddenly start up again without me doing anything. The modem would have a flashing online light but all of my digital tv channels would still work fine.
I eventually got fed up as it kept happening every few days and phoned up CS. I was told by an Indian guy that they were doing repairs in my area and it should be over soon. However, I doubted this very much as it had been happening so regularly.
I phoned again straight after hanging up and got through to an English guy who checked and said there was no maintenance in my area, did a few checks and then decided to send out an engineer to my house as he could find out why.
1hr later the engineer turned up at my door, very impresive :D
However, just my luck that the internet started working again only a couple of mins before he turned up!
He checked my signal levels and everything and said that everything seems to be working fine and there is nothing he can really do. I have a motorola SB4200 modem and asked if it needs to be replaced, but he said that they can handle 10mb without any problems and dont need to be replaced.
Couple of days later, internet went down again!
I remember the engineer mentioned briefly about changing the frequency to 331000000 instead of my currently set 339000000 , but said he didnt need to change it as everything seemed to be fine.
I changed the frequency to 331000000 through my config page, rebooted the modem and the internet worked fine!
I changed the freq back to 339000000 just to check and it still wasnt working, so switched back to 331000000 and it worked and have kept it on this new freq since.
So it has something to do with this frequency.
However, upon changing to the new frequency, my signal levels changed.
With the original 339000000Hz frequency, my signal levels were:
Signal to Noise Ratio : 38 dB
QAM : 256
Downstream Power Level : 1 dBmV
Upstream Power Level : 42 dBmV
With the new 331000000Hz frequency, my power levels changed and are now:
Downstream Power Level : 0 dBmV
Upstream Power Level : 52 dBmV
The upstream power level seems a bit high, but have not had any problems as of yet and am still getting good 10Mb speeds of 1000kbps+
1) Are there any other frequencies other than 339000000Hz and 331000000Hz that I could try?
2) Are my new power levels ok? The upstream seems a bit high but havnt had any problems yet. Is it worth me getting an engineer out to adjust the level?
3) Has anybody else had/heard of this sort of problem and explain what is causing it?
4) Can somebody explain how changing the frequency is making it work again, and what changing the frequency exactly does?
5) Are there any improvements in the new modems over the SB4200 that make it worth asking for the modem to be replaced?
Thanks for any help you can provide.
I think I have solved the problem by changing the frequency, but like to understand why I needed to change the freq in the first place and what it does :D